“Ooh, I love a good dance party,” Suzanne said. “Come on, Ms. Scarlet.” Then they all started bumping and grinding and I was caught in the third level of hell. Scarlet’s wig was still lopsided and her fur coat was slouched off one shoulder. It wasn’t a good look for her. If there was going to be a Rapture, I couldn’t think of a better time.
“I’d love to,” I finally managed to get out. “But I promised Nick I wasn’t going to take up PI work again.”
“You’re doing PI work for your mama,” Suzanne reminded me.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t really count,” I said. “And Nick won’t even know about it. I’m sure this is an open-and-shut case, and Vince will have a very good explanation. He’s not the cheating type.”
All three of them hmmphed and shook their heads at my naïvety.
“Says the woman whose almost first husband was found in the back of a limo with a skank on your wedding day.”
“That was a real good wedding,” Scarlet said. “One of my favorites.”
“I’m sorry I missed it,” Suzanne said.
“The cake wasn’t as good as yours,” Scarlet said. “But the entertainment was top notch.”
“Are you in the van?” Rosemarie asked me. “It’ll be just like old times.”
“No,” I said. “I’m in the Audi.”
Nick had bought me a sweet little Audi convertible that I rarely drove because I liked to think of myself as an independent woman who didn’t want her man buying her expensive toys or making big decisions for her. But it was a sexy car, and I figured I’d better enjoy it while I could, because it wouldn’t be too long until I was too fat to fit behind the wheel.
“Not a problem,” Suzanne said. “I’m going to go make sure everything is closed up tight next door, and y’all meet me in the alley. We can take my van.”
Rosemarie sighed. “I love your van. It always smells like cake.”
That was good enough for me.
Ten minutes later I was seriously starting to wonder if my baby was making me crazy. My brain had obviously ceased to function.
I’d never seen Suzanne’s cake van before. That was an oversight on my part, and I had no one to blame but myself. The van had been fully wrapped in bright images of her designs—wedding cakes, graduation cookies, and mouthwatering cupcakes. It would’ve been fine and dandy except the cupcakes had all been designed to look like body parts.
“She has a gift,” Rosemarie said, taking the words right out of my mouth. “How do you think she does that? That’s a good-looking penis.”
“Don’t say it,” I said.
“Good enough to eat.” And then she went into a fit of giggles.
Suzanne came out the back of her shop with her hands full and Rosemarie and I went over to help her. She had three cake boxes and an old Crate and Barrel paper bag.
“What is all this?” I asked.
“I figure the least we can do is give that woman a cake,” Suzanne said. “Wives being cheated on deserve some cake. If I’d had time I would’ve made her one that looked like a gun.”
“That’s real thoughtful of you,” Scarlet said.
“What’s in the bag?” Rosemarie asked.
“She said she was out of wine, so I got the next best thing. I got a couple of bottles of the amaretto I use to flavor the cakes. That ought to keep her busy awhile.”
“You clearly don’t know Phyllis,” Scarlet said.
“I’ll sit in the back,” Rosemarie said. “I like to stretch out. And I want to take off my Spanx. They’re squeezing my liver.”
“I’m going to sit in the back too,” Scarlet said. “I need to stretch out. Is there a bathroom in here?”
“No,” we all said at once.
“Just checking,” she said, and I hoisted her up into the back of the van with Rosemarie.
I sighed as I looked at my options for travel. Apparently that left me with the front seat. Now everyone in Whiskey Bayou could see I was driving around in a penis van.
“My mother is going to love this,” I said.
The ride to Whiskey Bayou took more than an hour because of the weather. The drizzle was heavy, and the clouds were gray and angry. It wasn’t supposed to get below freezing, but if it did the city would be shut down for days and the chances of finding Vince would be nil. The South didn’t do well with any kind of winter weather, and for Mother Nature to have extended it into March was just downright cruel.
But the time we got to Whiskey Bayou, we were all ready to claw our way out and save our sanity. Scarlet had fallen asleep again, and her snores were shaking the van along with Black Sabbath. The cabbie had been right. Sometimes it did sound like she was part of the band.
“Oh, now,” Suzanne said. “Isn’t this the most darling town. Cute as a damned button.”
“I tried to get you to come down here when we were in college, but you wouldn’t do it,” Rosemarie said.
“You weren’t exactly selling it to me,” Suzanne said. “And I don’t remember you hurrying home every weekend. You usually bunked with me.”
“You had better booze and a hot tub,” Rosemarie said.
We heard a thunk and the snoring stopped, so we all peeked into the back to make sure Scarlet was okay. She’d slipped off her seat onto the floor and Rosemarie was helping her back up.
“I feel better,” she said. “Nothing like a good afternoon nap. I always get sleepy after lunchtime.”
“Or after your midmorning whiskey and cake,” I whispered under my breath, but Suzanne heard me and chuckled.
“Bad Boys” started playing from somewhere in my bag, and I dug around, finding it on the very bottom while everyone else started singing along. I hesitated on whether to answer Nick’s call with everyone in the van, but I figured there was some unwritten marriage rule about ignoring your spouse’s calls. Especially when that spouse was a cop. The
